
[0475] suppose, and there I was told to sit down. [0476] I must have tried to
explain. [0477] I won't go into it. [0478] I obtained permission, if not to
lie down on a bench, at least to remain standing, propped against
the wall. [0479] The room was dark and full of people hastening to and
fro, malefactors, policemen, lawyers, priests [place = inline] , and journalists I
suppose. [0480] All that made a [place = supralinear] it [place = margin left] [?] dark, dark forms crowding in a dark place.
[0481] They paid no attention to me and I repaid the compliment. [0482] Then he [place = supralinear] ow
could I know that they were paying no attention to me and how could
I repay the compliment, since they were paying no attention to me?
[0483] I don't know. [0484] I knew it and I did it, that's all I know. [0485] But
suddenly a woman materialized before me, a big [place = inline] , fat woman dressed
in black, or [place = supralinear] rather in mauve.
[0486] I still wonder today if it wasn't
the social worker. [0487] She was holding out to me, on an odd saucer,
a mug full of a gre [place = supralinear] ayish concoction which must have been green tea
with saccharine and powdered milk. [0488] Nor was that all, for between [place = supralinear] beside the
mug and [place = supralinear] on the saucer a thick slab of dry bread was precariously lodged,
so that I began to say; in a kind of anguish, it's going to fall,
it's going to fall, as if it mattered whether it fell or not.
[0489] A
moment later I myself was holding, in my trembling hands, this
little pile of tottering disparates, in which the hard [place = inline] , the liquid [place = inline] ,
and the soft were joined, without understanding how the transfer had
been effected.
[0490] Let me tell you this, when social workers offer you,
free [place = inline] , gratis [place = inline] , and for nothing, something to hinder you from losing
consciousness, which with them is an obsession, it is useless to
recoil, [0491] they will pursue you to the end of the earth, the vomitory
in their hand. [0492] The Salvation Army is no better. [0493] Against the
charitable gesture there is no defenc [place = supralinear] se, that I know of. [0494] You sink
your head, you put out your hands all trembling and twined together
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- Marginal Additions
Molloy © 2016 Samuel Beckett Digital Manuscript Project.
Editors: Magessa O'Reilly, Dirk Van Hulle, Pim Verhulst and Vincent Neyt